


see where you hide

by alrightginger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Genderbending, Love Confessions, more like half a love confession and an oblivious Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:41:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29453226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alrightginger/pseuds/alrightginger
Summary: The Burrow is quiet when Harry arrives back.It’s such an ungodly hour that she isn’t expecting anyone to be awake when she stumbles in, half pissed from whatever it was Aberforth served her at the Hogs Head, but she should know better by now. Luck has never been on her side. Nerve, sheer gall… those have always worked in her favor.If she had any sort of luck, George Weasley would not be sitting at the kitchen table, waiting on her.
Relationships: Harry Potter/George Weasley
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119





	see where you hide

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: Hi! I have a prompt :) George/Female Harry and just a good old fashioned blown-out-of-proportion-fight spiraling into feelingssssss being admitted/hot and heavy?!! Love everything you do!
> 
> Though this one didn't follow as well as I would have liked it to.

The Burrow is quiet when Harry arrives back. 

It’s such an ungodly hour that she isn’t expecting anyone to be awake when she stumbles in, half pissed from whatever it was Aberforth served her at the Hogs Head, but she should know better by now. Luck has never been on her side. Nerve, sheer gall… those have always worked in her favor. 

If she had any sort of luck, George Weasley would not be sitting at the kitchen table, waiting on her. 

“Where have you been?” he asks, clutching a Firewhiskey in one hand and propping his chin up with the other. 

“Out,” she answers simply. There’s a bit of a slur to her speech that she pretends she doesn’t notice. “Not that it’s any of your business.” 

George closes his eyes before he speaks again. Harry squints and swears she can see him counting down. 

“The last time you went out, you nearly got mobbed by people wanting to see  _ the girl who lived.  _ I thought we all agreed that you wouldn’t go out alone for a while?” 

“I wasn’t alone. Aberforth was with me,” Harry counters. She’s good at this, arguing with George. It’s something they’ve been doing since the war ended. They can’t stand the sight of each other sometimes. 

They look at each other and see the breath that they draw, the way their faces are flushed from blood and heat, and they think of the people who are buried in the ground. Who are cold and their hearts are no longer working to keep them alive. 

They wonder why they aren’t also buried underneath a family oak tree or a graveyard. What gives them the right to live when so many others have died? 

It’s some sort of unspoken bond between the two of them, this guilt that they carry. It’s the reason they quarrel so desperately. They understand the other’s frustration, and the fact that they know what it’s like to have grief so deep that it feels like it will devour them whole. 

George can push and Harry will push back, and it’s been a routine of theirs since May. 

Harry wonders how much longer they can afford to push before they fall.

“Aberforth was with you because he  _ works there,”  _ George growls.  _ Growls.  _ She’s never heard him make the sound before Fred passed. Now she hears it constantly. “What good will he do you if you’re attacked on the street again when you leave his pub?” 

“I wasn’t attacked this time, see?” Harry gestures to herself wildly, nearly knocking her glasses off in the process. Maybe she’s a bit more gone than she previously thought. “All in one piece.”

“Yes, brilliant,” George says sarcastically. “Your robes may not be torn to shreds, but you’ve clearly been drinking.” 

“I don’t think you’re one to lecture me.” She points to the Firewhiskey still in his hand, wishing she could cock a single eyebrow. “You’re drinking too.” 

“This is one Firewhiskey.  _ One.  _ Which, by the way, I’ve hardly had half off. How much have you had to drink?”

Harry doesn’t know. Doesn’t even think to keep count. Aberforth isn’t going to let her get completely sloshed on his account though. George should know that. 

“It’s none of your business,” she says, attempting to push past him and make her way to Percy’s old room which has been claimed as hers for now. For as long as she needs it, according to Mrs. Weasley. 

Probably not for too much longer, she thinks as George stands and grabs her by the elbow to keep her from moving past him. She can’t imagine staying under the same roof as him for much longer. 

“You can’t keep doing this,” he tells her, pulling her into him slightly. “You can’t keep going out night after night like this, trying to drown your issues with alcohol. It’s not going to make them go away.”

“I’m not!” she protests, attempting to jerk her arm back. George snorts, keeping a tight hold on her. “I’m not… it’s not like… You don’t — you don’t know what it’s like.”

Her voice is beginning to waver, and the grip George has on her is causing her to anchor herself in her feelings and she can’t seem to break free. Can’t seem to shake herself from them, and it’s all George’s fault. 

“Right. I don’t know what it’s like. Because the war took absolutely nothing from me. Because I didn’t walk away from it losing half of myself.”

It’s a low blow. One that makes Harry flinch in response, but she knows she probably deserves it. She’s not the only one who is experiencing grief right now, even if sometimes it’s hard for her to remember that. 

“That’s not… it’s not…”

“Not what? The same thing? Fred’s life isn’t the same thing?”

“Don’t you think,” Harry says quietly, “that if I could trade my life for his, that if I could just go back and trade my life for all of them, that I would?”

George starts at this, his mouth falling open. “What are you talking about?”

“Voldemort wanted me. If I had traded my life earlier, if I had just walked into the forest earlier, maybe Fred would still be here! Maybe Remus, Tonk,  _ Colin Creevy!  _ Maybe they would all still be here!”

It’s a guilt she lives with daily, one she hasn’t been able to voice until now because it weighs so heavily on her. 

The fact that her brushes with death are just that… mere brushes.

“Harriet —“

“And you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t prefer to have Fred here over me! You can’t tell me that you don’t look at me, and see the fact that I died and came back and he didn’t!”

It’s something that she hasn’t told anyone but she suspects that George knows, the fact that she did really die in the forest that night. The fact that she had a choice to come back, and so many others didn’t. 

She’s mumbled about it one too many times in their arguments that she knows he’s picked up on it. 

How can he not be angry with her over that?

“I don’t,” George argues, his hands moving to cup her face. She flinches but doesn’t push him away. “I don’t think that at all! Harry, you honestly can’t believe that I don’t want you here!”

“I don’t know,” she breaks, crumbling into his chest. He lets her, cradling her closer with a hand tangled into her hair. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I just — I feel so guilty.”

_ I don’t want to feel this way anymore,  _ she thinks.  _ I’m so tired of feeling this way. _

“I would give up a lot to have Fred back. So much, you have no idea,” George says, and Harry feels the first shed of tears drop on the crown of her head. “But not you. Never you.”

“How can you say that?” Her voice is so soft that she’s surprised he hears her, but she knows he does. “How can you not hate me? I’ve always thought…”

_ That you might.  _

_ That you should.  _

“It’s not possible for me to hate you. I love you too much for that.”

Harry feels like she must have misheard him. There’s no possible way that he’s said what she thinks he has. 

She blinks up at him, teary eyed. “What?”

“I said that I love you, you idiot,” he tells her, and there’s fondness laced into his tone that allows cracks of the old George, the one that the war has changed but not destroyed, to peak back through. 

“But how? How can you possibly…”

“How can I love someone so thick? I’m not sure. I ask myself that everyday.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Harry shouts, immediately covering her mouth. Everyone else is asleep and she doesn’t want Mrs. Weasley to interrupt this particular conversation. She tries again, voice much lower. “I just meant… how can you possibly know that you love someone? I’ve never — I don’t —“

Harry hasn’t really thought about love. Not like that, at least. She loved Sirius like a father, and that is perhaps the deepest love she’s ever experienced so far. 

Though she’d be lying if she didn’t say she’s certainly thought about George in a particular way that makes her cheeks heat and her heart clench. 

She’s never let herself explore that feeling, though. She doesn’t know how deep it runs.

“You don’t know how you feel,” George says, confirming what she’s trying to say. He looks amused. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to know how you feel. I just wanted you to know how I feel. That you’re irreplaceable to me.”

“Oh.” 

She isn’t sure what to say to that, though her heart pounds. She’s half drunk and not in the right state of mind to properly sort through a love confession. 

George is patient though. She can feel it run through him like a river, washing over her when he leans down to kiss the scar on her forehead. 

“You can take all the time in the world to figure out how you feel. You don’t even have to feel the same way. But please… just take care of yourself. I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you. Promise me, yeah?” 

Her grip tightens into the material of his shirt. She uses him to ground herself into this moment. 

“I promise.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment!


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